I have 3 vlans… v1 v2 v3
I have a storage ReadyNAS device on v2
I have a winbox on v2 that is Gigabit connected..
When I download a 6Gig ISO file from the ReadyNas device (SMB) to my winbox on v2 I get 110MB /sec (Nominal)
Then when I take that same Winbox and connect it to v1 or v3 and download the same ISO file from the ReadyNas device on v2 I can only get a max throughput of 20MB… NOT 110MB…
Why?? is this due to a bad vlan config using port vlans
As you get 110MB/s when in the same vlan, then it seems that the vlans themselves are configured properly and the traffic is handled by the switch chip, not the CPU.
As for connection between vlans - the traffic passes through CPU, because it is L3 traffic that is routed, not switched.
So in general this behaviour is normal: you need a quite powerful device to route at full gigabit.
However there is a lot, that can be made to increase routing speed even on less powerful routers.
But that will highly depend on configuration.
For example:
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/Fasttrack
What’s the router you’re using and the VLAN config?
port based vlan
RB2011U
Switch1 1Gbps
Bridge1
Vlan(1) 10.0.0.3/24 ether 3
Bridge2
Vlan(2) 192.168.2.0/24 ether 4/5
Vlan(3) 192.168.7.0/24 ether 2
Maybe I can use FastTrack to speed it up?
20 MB/s is about what you can expect from an RB2011.
Yes, you can try to tweak it using features like FastTrack, when it is worth the trouble.
Otherwise you need to move on to a faster (newer generation) router like a CCR1009.
Have a look at the CPU usage when doing the transfer. The absolute max that router can handle according to the test results is 1.4Gbps in the most ideal situation (fast path & 1518 byte packets). It drops off heavily with smaller packets and filter rules.
Fasttrack should help. Interestingly the wiki page (https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:IP/Fasttrack) actually uses RB2011 as an example and they were getting 360Mbps (45MB) without it, probably using ideal settings. Even with fasttrack they didn’t hit 1Gbps.
Thanks for all the responses. I will try the FastTrack and report back.
Okay, the FastTrack connection made ALL the difference. On vlan3 Rx to vlan2 I went from 20 MB/s to 93 MB/s over the switch chip.
Not quite as fast as the physical layer but that is well within acceptable ranges.
Also - I did watch the CPU and it went from 100% before FastTrack to 92% after FastTrack for this test.
Thanks!!!
You have to understand that FastTrack is not simply some secret handbrake that gets released, but it operates
by removing functionality from the router that not everyone uses. Thus the router has fewer checks to make on
each packet and it can operate faster. The good thing is that you can set criteria for connections to be fasttracked
so you can run part of your traffic in FastTrack mode and part of it in full-featured mode.
You need to be aware of this when you are adding more and more new configuration to the router because there
will be some things that simply fail to work when you have the usual “fasttrack all established/related” and there is no indication.
Thanks for that added information. I will keep that in mind as I go forward with my configurations.
I think (but not sure since I’m still a new learner) this might be happening because of using multi bridge configuration, not sure how many bridges can your router accelerate but on low performance router the hw is on the first bridge, make sure hw=yes on the bridge you want to send data over.
Again, these are my two cents.
This can’t be due to HW offloading. That functionality is used for switching (L2 functionality) while OP is routing between VLANs which is L3 functionality and that one can not be offloaded to L2 hardware.
Correct, thank you!